Such by Such
by Juniorstarcatcher
Summary: Remus is faced with a choice that Dorcas cannot accept.


_Oh, I loved too much,_

_and such by such is happiness thrown away._

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><p>She's sitting in his overstuffed, threadbare chair by the fire when he opens the door to his flat. And, Merlin, does he wish she wasn't. He wishes that he never told her that she could come over whenever she needed to escape the rest of the world, as she often felt the need to with the war looming in the ever nearing distance. He wishes that the house were empty, that she wasn't sitting there, wrapped in the duvet she pulled from his bed, blowing on a cup of tea to cool it as if she had not a care in the world. He wishes she wasn't in front of the fireplace, the light drawing lush curves across her face; he wishes he didn't love her more in this moment than he ever has before.<p>

But, she is there. And she does look beautiful and comfortable by the fire. And Remus does love her more in this moment than he ever has before, a love that grows more and more with each painful second that he hesitates in the doorway.

She turns her head toward him, her previous content expression dissolving into the look one might get when hit with a stunning curse.

"Remus?" She asks.

He returns her gaze, but guiltily so. Nodding once in her direction, he begins walking to his bedroom, striding across the room with leaden steps that press against the floorboards noisily.

"Dorcas," He replies.

Jumping to her feet, abandoning the duvet and her tea, Dorcas follows hot on his heels, her eyebrows furrowed and her heart pounding at unhealthy numbers per minute.

"What's- What happened to you?" Dorcas cries, quickening her pace to chase down Remus' long strides across the flat.

When they make it into his room, Remus slams the door behind them, causing Dorcas to jump at the sound. For the first time since his arrival at the flat, Dorcas is allowed the full image of his face. Handsome features now wracked with scars, his jumper ripped and bloodied, the wounds are all artificial, but living in a time of war makes even the smallest of scrapes seem like a knife to the heart.

"I need to talk to you," Remus states.

He wishes once again that she weren't here. That he could just disappear into the darkness with little more than a note wishing her well and to forget he ever happened to her. But he cannot wish or will her away, so it is time for him to make her understand in whatever way he can manage. Watching the concern bleed from her eyes burns him, and he gulps down the desire to hold her and assure her that he's going to be alright. He knows the lie wouldn't convince her.

"But you're hurt-" Dorcas begins, trying to go to him, to hold him so as to better examine the extent of the injuries.

Remus dances out of her reach, moving along the wall of the room, opening up the empty trunk at the end of his bed.

"I'll get better," he says, brushing off her concern easily before reaching for the doors of his wardrobe.

Ripping them open, he dizzily pulls jumpers and trousers out, throwing them into the open trunk with little care or patience for order. Dorcas watches on in confusion, in something bordering on horror.

"But-" She attempts.

Her protestation goes unfinished. Remus ceases his frantic motions momentarily, hesitating with a heap of socks in his arms. He doesn't know what he will need where he is going, but he will pack whatever his trunk will allow; he isn't thinking clearly in this moment anyway. When he stares at her with his head unbowed, his gaze unwavering, her pulse ceases running, pausing in its racing to acknowledge the shockwave that his imploring eyes send through her system.

"Dorcas. I need you to hear me," Remus begs.

She gulps. And braces herself for the worst.

"What's wrong?" She asks, her voice dropping down into unfamiliarly low octaves.

If he doesn't look away from her face now, he knows he never will. Gasping in a breath of air, he forces himself to turn around, ripping her from his vision as he drops the arm full of clothing he currently holds into the trunk at his feet.

"I have to go away for a while," he mutters.

Dorcas holds her breath. Her terror and confusion mix in a cocktail strong enough to inebriate her almost instantly.

"What?" She questions.

He has the audacity to repeat his statement, as if he thinks she didn't hear him.

"I have to go away for a while."

Dorcas recoils as if he's slapped her; that isn't an answer, she thinks to herself.

"I heard you," she clarifies, leaving him an opportunity to explain.

She watches on as he packs mindlessly, wordlessly, wondering when he will say something, anything to explain himself to her. He says nothing. Instantly, she blames herself. She thinks that he must want to break things off with her and has to leave London so he won't be near her, that's how terrible she is. Her mind conjures up impossibilities, but ones that she begins to believe after a stretch of Remus' silence.

"I don't understand," she finally prods, hoping it is enough to make him talk.

He shakes his head and runs a free hand through his hair, looking frantically around the room, wondering what else he should take with him, what he'll be needing in this new life.

"I can't tell you anything else," Remus snaps, rushing to his desk.

The drawers begin to empty themselves, clattering against the wood of the trunk, but Remus doesn't pay them any attention. His biggest struggle in this moment is reminding himself to keep breathing. Dorcas folds her arms across her chest and tries to remain standing. The room spins, but she manages to keep herself upright.

"You show up covered in scratches and bruises and tell me you have to leave but can't tell me why?" She says, not even bothering to hide the accusation in her tone.

Remus merely nods, definitively, as though it is any kind of answer.

"Yeah."

A copy of the Prophet falls off of Remus' desk in his hurry to pack. It falls onto the floor, its pages scattering like pearls from a broken necklace. The cover tells a story easy enough to read; the photograph playing over and over again is easy enough to translate even without the help of the bold headline. HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED STRIKES TERROR THROUGH WIZARDING WORLD.

That's when she understands. Realization rushes through her bones with the sting of a cold shower. Her skin goes pale.

"It's Him, isn't it?" Dorcas whispers.

Her words only barely register to Remus, but he freezes in his place. His heart sinks down to the floor; he wishes this weren't happening. He wishes he could have disappeared into the shadows without her ever knowing what he will become.

"What are you talking about?" He asks, his voice a flimsy defense.

If there was anything in this world he thought he could protect her from, it is the knowledge of what he is about to do.

But she has seen through him, and speaks without fear.

"It's Voldemort," she says, the words confident and clear, with no sense of question or hesitation in them. Dorcas knows. There is nothing else in this world that could make Remus feel this way. What comes out of the young man's mouth only confirms what now looms in front of her like an oncoming storm.

"Don't say his name," Remus barks.

So it is true, Dorcas thinks to herself. Remus has been recruited. That's what this is. Her pulse runs rampant and her protective instinct kicks in. She has to understand. She has to understand so that she can save him from this. Not wanting to look at her broken expression for even a breath longer, Remus returns to his packing, now throwing anything his hands can reach into the waiting trunk.

"I'm owed an explanation," Dorcas implores.

Remus doesn't want to think about it. A side alley way and an imposing figure muttering to him in murderous tones. How Remus made it out alive will forever be a mystery.

"Fenrir Greyback found me," Remus confesses.

Dorcas knows what that name means, and to her, to Remus, it means more than Voldemort.

"Remus-" She begins, her voice tender, like a hand reaching out to comfort him with its gentility.

Unresponsive to her sympathy, Remus' eyes lose their focus as his body continues its robotic motions.

"He cornered me when I was leaving James' and…," he motions to the cuts on his face, which have since clotted and dried against his skin, "this happened."

Dorcas narrows her eyes. This story doesn't add up.

"He scared you into joining him?" She asks.

The skepticism in her voice isn't missed by the young woman across the room from him.

"Yes," he says, his voice signaling the end of the conversation.

It isn't a signal picked up on or heeded by Dorcas. Instead, she shakes her head and mutters to herself.

"This isn't you, Remus."

The sound of her voice aches as it rattles around his chest. He shrugs and looks around the room for something else. A clawing sensation within him says that he's missed something, that there's something else he should take while he is away with Fenrir, fighting for Voldemort's cause.

"It's who I am now," he says, trailing off when he spots it.

On the window sill, in full view of the light, is a framed photograph of he and Dorcas. Smiling and happy. It isn't much, but he could hide it away from Fenrir, just to have a reminder of why this sacrifice is one that he's making. One that he has to make. He walks across the room toward it, to pack it away.

"No, it's not. Don't say that," Dorcas begs.

She gets to the picture first. She holds the photograph and its frame in her hand, her knuckles turning white from the effort. If she has to hold it hostage forever, she will, but Remus sighs and extends his hand for it.

"Let it go," he commands.

She shakes her head and tightens her grip. The muscles in her hand throb with the exertion, but she refuses to relent. There is something that he's hiding from her; she can sense it. Remus is a rational, thoughtful man. He always has been, as long as she's known him. There has to be something greater here than just a little roughing up by Fenrir Greyback to set him into this state. There has to be.

"Not until you tell me what's going on," she swears.

Remus shakes his head, his eyes begging her to let it go. To let him go.

"I've told you," he retorts, reaching out for the picture frame again.

His fingers wrap around the edge of the frame, tugging as if winning the photograph would mean winning this argument. He doesn't look Dorcas in the eye; he can't. If he does, he knows that he'll fold and retreat. And he can't. Not now. He pulls on his end of the picture, instantly feeling Dorcas' reactionary, defensive tug on her end.

"Not the truth. Not all of it," she nearly shouts, her face drawn downward in heartache.

While Remus can't look at her, she can't look away from him. The strife and torment evident in his features breaks her heart, but she pulls ever harder on the frame over which they are currently struggling.

That is, they struggle until they can no longer. Remus lets go a half second before she does, and the picture frame flies across the room. It happens as if in slow-motion, the glass and the frame shattering into thousands of small pieces when they strike the wall. The shards explode outward from the impact like savage fireworks, decorating the floor with a sort of wild glitter.

Dorcas and Remus are both still. Unbreathing. Unthinking. Unspeaking. They merely stare at the destruction they have created.

When Remus finally speaks the truth, it is with all the grandeur and solemnity of a man delivering a body bag. He only glances at Dorcas from the corner of his eye.

"He knows about us," He hesitates; that isn't entirely the truth. With a deep breath in, he readjusts the wording so the truth it becomes, "He knows about you."

His voice breaks when he says that last word; a shiver runs up and down his spine.

There will never be a nightmare again that doesn't feature Fenrir looming over Remus' bruised body in that alley way, spitting as he said,

"If you want her to live, you know what to do."

Dorcas stands to her full height and raises an eyebrow.

"And?" She prompts.

"He'll kill you."

Dorcas shakes her head, scoffing.

"Fenrir wouldn't-" She starts.

But that isn't on the table. Fenrir made that very clear indeed. Oh, no. If Remus doesn't join them, Voldemort would take care of her personally. That's the promise.

"No. Voldemort would," Remus replies.

In the back of her mind, Dorcas supposes that she knew that. That's the implication of such a life-threat, anyway. But to hear it out loud? Spoken in such plain words, with such simplicity? Her knees fail her, and she sits back down on the side of Remus' bed, staring still at the shattered glints of glass scattered about the floor. Remus kneels in front of her, uncaring of the bits of glass that may have made their way as far as the bed. He takes her cold hands in his, trying to make her understand-trying to make her see what it is that he's tried so hard to convince himself of today.

"If I work with them, then when this is all over, I can be with you again. You'd be safe and we could be together," he says, repeating things that he isn't entirely certain are true, things that he is trying to believe.

That hangs in the air like tinsel for a long while, so enticing, but so empty. After an immeasurable time, Dorcas looks up from their entwined hands and looks at him with new eyes.

"Do you think I could ever forgive you if you did this?" She asks.

Remus reels as if punched.

"What?" He breathes.

The air tinges with electricity, spinning between them and making the hairs on the back of Remus' neck stiffen as she grips his hands ever tighter within hers.

"Do you think I would still want to be with you if you joined _him_? That I could still love you if you- if you sold yourself like this?"

She slides down off of the bed, falling to her knees, mirroring Remus as she still holds his hands in hers. Furious tears are blinked back without regret, and she swallows hard, trying to muster up the courage to press onward.

"I don't know that Voldemort would kill me," she raises his knuckles to his lips, pressing them there before continuing, looking him in the eye the whole way, "But I know that losing you to him would."

Seeing him…. With them. On their side. It's more than she could ever bear. She could not follow him into the darkness. And she knows that once someone is lost to darkness, they can never be recovered.

"Don't ask me to let you go, Remus. Please don't ask that of me."

Releasing his hands, she puts hers on either of his cheeks, forcing him to look in her eyes. If she could see through her tears, she would see him in a similar state. She sniffles.

"I couldn't survive it," she confesses, the knife of emotion twisting in her belly.

Resting his forehead against hers, Remus breathes her in, relishing the feeling of her flesh against his. The feeling of love. Eyes closed, tears slip past his eyelids mournfully.

"I just want to save you," he reveals.

Dorcas waits through an eternity for him to open his eyes so that she may look at him with the most reassurance she can possibly muster. Her lips quirk up in a smile and she reminds herself that there is a war going on outside of this house, and it is bigger than either of them.

"Maybe some of us aren't meant to be saved," she whispers, her eyes betraying her honesty.

In the end, Remus doesn't make good on his promise to return to Fenrir and fight at his side. But, Voldemort does make good on his promise.

Dorcas Meadowes is killed on a rainy Monday. When Remus steps out onto the front steps of his apartment building and sees her body lying out in the rain, somewhere between that first sob that rips from his chest at the sight and collapsing upon her still figure, Remus hears those words in his head, singing in soul-deadening choruses like out of tune children's melodies.

_Maybe some of us aren't meant to be saved._

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><p><strong>This is the first DorcasRemus fic that I've ever written. The ship means so much to me, so I'm so happy to finally get to write for it! Please review and let me know what you think! :)**


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